When I heard about the new TV series based on The Handmaid’s Tale, I decided to do something I don’t usually and actually read the book first. (Fancy that!) As so many have relayed over the years, the effort was well worth it, and as a book that explicitly revolves around questions of sex, gender, and power, it is a gold mine for historical reflections and speculations. Beyond this general relevance to historians, the book is actually capped by a section that tackles questions of the historian’s task directly. In “Historical Notes,” we peek into a lecture, given by a Read more